Time Splitters 2 (GameCube)

Want to play a first-person shooter on your console? Tired of there being no proper GoldenEye sequel? Wishing that you could play the part of a Barbary ape in the Wild West? TimeSplitters 2 is the game for you if you answered "yes" to any of these questions.

When Rare made GoldenEye for the N64 in 1997 they created the best first-person shoot-'em-up the world had ever seen and, arguably, has ever seen to this day. Many of the geniuses behind the game left Rare shortly after to set-up their own company, Free Radical; their first game was the rather rushed (in time for the PS2's launch) TimeSplitters but this sequel is polished to perfection and easily one of the best games of the year.

One of the main problems with the original TimeSplitters was its awful single-player mode, but this has been totally revamped for the sequel with a proper story mode, all-new time zones and weapons and absolutely mountains of unlockable hidden extras. Thankfully they’ve kept the wicked sense of humour from the first game, but there's also a lot more strategy for solo players this time around, including an amusing homage to GoldenEye's Arkangelsk Dam level as well as pastiches of other games and films scattered throughout the game.

The real reason for TimeSplitters 2's greatness, though, is the multiplayer mode. This is GoldenEye to the nth degree, with superbly designed levels, tons of weapons and all sorts of tricks and gimmicks such as remote control gun turrets and invisibility pills. It may lack the epic scope of Halo but in multiplayer mode at least this is a lot more fun--and fun, as The Beatles never said, is all you need. --David Jenkins

"A stonker of a time-travelling FPS with more than a whiff of GoldenEye. 92%."

In TimeSplitters 2 the evil race of TimeSplitters are travelling back into human history, authoring events that are leading to the enslavement of mankind. Controlling a motley crew of renegade characters, you must hunt them down across environments such as the gangster-filled 1920s, the temples and lush jungles of the Aztecs, Soviet military installations of the Cold War and futuristic robot-factories in space.

TimeSplitters 2 delivers involved single-player and cooperative story modes; it has a complex narrative, multiple objective-based episodes and animated cut-scenes. The game engine has been extensively upgraded to accommodate bigger environments and special graphic effects, and the MapMaker has been enhanced, giving more options to the advanced gamer looking for customisable game scenarios.

Prepare to battle through history as the evil TimeSplitters get ready to rise again. TimeSplitters 2 will improve on the original in every conceivable way, offering a more involving single player and co-operative story mode and featuring a complex narrative with multiple objective-based episodes and superbly animated cut-scenes. The game engine has been extensively upgraded to accommodate bigger, better backgrounds and special graphical effects while still providing the distinctive smooth fast paced action of the original. A completely rewritten animation system incorporating inverse kinematics brings even more lifelike movement and dynamism to a new collection of "loveable rogue" characters. TimeSplitters 2 will retain the unique MapMaker in an enhanced form, which opens up even more potential for user customised game scenarios.